50 Feathers
by thesirenwriter
Summary: 50 Sentences. A girl, Death, paradise, and their undoing. Ryoji/Minako.


**Disclaimer: **All together now, "Not mine!"

**A/N: **50 Sentence things are my favorite . . . that and purposeless drabbles/character studies/people talk and nothing happens. Oh, and the timeline jumps around like crazy in this.

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**5o Feathers**

**o1 | ring  
**He can't wear it anymore – it was made for human fingers, after all – and really, it is the only thing he has left to give her.

**o2 | hero  
**It is January 31st and she has come for him at last, hair tossed by the wind and steel bared, and some impossible voice dares to hope that she'll save him.

**o3 | memory  
**She says, "These historical dates should be easy for you, after memorizing all those girls' phone numbers," to which he replies, with an expression so distraught and perfectly sincere, "But – but I forgot all those after I met you!"

**o4 | box  
**"Your birthday's already passed, right?" he asks, taking a gold-wrapped package from behind his back and offering it to her gallantly.

**o5 | run  
**It's an ambush, and the party is spread thin across Harabah when he appears between her and the horde, ink-black wings menacingly spread and scythe held in a high arc.

**o6 | hurricane  
**She's everything in his dreams – strawberry smiles and warms hands and promises for tomorrow and she's vivid, so vivid, that he's flying for now but when it stops the fall will kill him.

**o7 | wings  
**They're nothing but a measuring stick for how far apart the two of them truly are, but when she sees them she only smiles a little sadly, and asks him what it's like to fly.

**o8 | cold  
**She balks at his hands, and for days he's terribly self-conscious until she appears in front of his desk with a pair of black, yellow-lined knit gloves she's made herself.

**o9 | red  
**He isn't sleeping at all by mid-December, because his dreams have begun to meticulously juxtapose the color of her eyes with the color of her blood on his hands.

**1o | drink  
**She makes him try something new every time they go to Chagall, and when he finds something he particularly likes he moves closer and offers her the cup to try.

**11 | midnight  
**"I want this last second," she tells him, taking his hand as they stand on the sidewalk on December 31st with the clock about to strike, and he only hopes her last memory isn't of a monster.

**12 | temptation  
**They're an inch apart and he's been missing for a week, and it would be so easy to lean down and kiss her now, for the first time, but he holds back – lets his hand linger on cheek instead.

**13 | view  
**She wonders what he sees, staring out their classroom window throughout the lecture, and only turning away to (correctly) answer the teacher's question even though she knows he hasn't been listening at all.

**14 | music  
**"You have pianist's fingers," she remarks one day at the river bank, holding his hand palm-up in her own, "so I was wondering if you had ever played."

**15 | silk  
**She is falling for him in a thousand ways, but the first time she really notices it they are standing in the Home Economics room after school, and he runs his hand over the fabric she's chosen and nonchalantly remarks that she would look lovely in it.

**16 | cover  
**"You're . . . not just a transfer student, are you?"

**17 | promise  
**She says she will come for him, in the end, and even though it should, it doesn't sound much like a threat.

**18 | dream  
**Once upon a time he falls in love with her, and Nyx is only a long-forgotten myth and she has no cuts and bruises from "dangerous bush collisions," and when he says he'll stay with her he really does mean forever.

**19 | candle  
**He lights one in Tartarus to read by – even though they're apart he feels this unnatural obligation to read all the manga she has recommended.

**2o | talent  
**"You know that's kind of disturbing, right?" she asks, biting back a giggle as he returns from talking a gaggle of school girls into vacating their favorite table at Chagall.

**21 | silence  
**She tells the others to split up and search for Shadows, and then she waits, straining to hear some sign of him in the empty, blood-soaked hallway.

**22 | journey  
**She knows it will be over soon – whatever this is that started the day she came to Tatsumi Port Island – and she realizes that no matter how it ends, she would go back and have her heart broken again and again if it meant having this brief, perfect happiness.

**23 | fire  
**He watches from the darkness as she casts Maragidyne against a horde of Shadows, and he finds himself pumping his fist a little – "That's my girl."

**24 | strength  
**He could be like all those superheroes on TV, if he wanted to; he wonders if she would be impressed if he threw a car for her, or if she would scold him for mindless property damage.

**25 | mask  
**The battle has begun, and she can't help but be a little happy that she can't see his face when she prepares Trumpeter for another attack.

**26 | ice  
**"Uh . . . Mitsuru-senpai doesn't care for me much, does she?"

**27 | fall  
**The leaves begin to change color, and he marvels at them, noting that the deep reds are the same color as her hair; he looks a little sad, then.

**28 | forgotten  
**"I don't really mind," she says, after the end, "but I kind of wish we could be there with them – what if they get bored?"

**29 | dance  
**When she fights she moves precisely, gliding with no unnecessary movement and skirting around enemy attacks, and it's beautiful to watch even though it makes his breath hitch every time.

**3o | body  
**There is the one the world sees, and the one that follows him everywhere – in window reflections and the trailing street light shadows – waiting for him to slip up and let it loose.

**31 | sacred  
**She leaves a note for him on her window sill, and he finds it while she's at school: "Meet me at Naganaki Shrine on the 25th."

**32 | farewells  
**"Don't ever say it," she whispers into the crook of his neck, knowing in that child-like way that saying it makes it real.

**33 | world  
**Even as it is all ending, he thinks of her as the savior of lost causes.

**34 | formal  
**"Don't you have anything else to wear," she wants to know, tugging on his crisp white shirtsleeve, "because this looks like a stain waiting to happen."

**35 | fever  
**"It got everyone in the dorm . . . except for me of course," she says with a sigh, then smirks at him across the café table; she has every reason to stay out late this evening.

**36 | laugh  
**Sometimes she just totally ties up his tongue, and he would feel like an idiot if the look on her face wasn't so perfect.

**37 | lies  
**"It's OK, never mind," she tells him, putting her hand over his when he tries to tell her about his family.

**38 | forever  
**She makes it seem possible.

**39 | overwhelmed  
**Moonlight Bridge happens, and she can't move, can scarcely breathe, as the truth explodes into the open and all her attempts at denial wither into dust.

**4o | whisper  
**Sometimes she can hear him – small favors of hope as she wanders the void that is Tartarus.

**41 | wait  
**"I was going to walk you back to the dorm – that is, if you don't mind," he tells her, lingering at the school gates after a long student council meeting.

**42 | talk  
**He just doesn't feel like he has to _do_ anything when they're together; just the two of them and a random topic are enough.

**43 | search  
**"Don't do this to me, _please_ don't do this to me," she says under her breath as she scours the mall and Port Island Station and Iwatodai Station and Naganaki and any place they ever went together, hoping she will finally run into him.

**44 | hope  
**She says she'll do all the worrying from now on, that she will fix everything, somehow; he begins to believe her without ever meaning to.

**45 | eclipse  
**There is simply no one else for her, after him.

**46 | gravity  
**"So, you don't actually have to flap those, do you?" she asks; it's the 25th and it's cold and she is trying so hard to lighten the mood.

**47 | highway  
**In one imagined future, they leave all their problems behind them and disappear into the sunset – just like all those movies she used to think were stupid.

**48 | unknown  
**In the end, it's easier not to ask the myriad questions dancing on her tongue.

**49 | lock  
**The others try her bedroom door several times after he leaves, but she permits no one during her one night of mourning.

**5o | breathe  
**"You can rest now," says a familiar voice, a gentle hand ghosting over her temple, and Minako closes her eyes.

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**RYYYOOOOOOOOJIIIIIIIIII *sobs* . . . Eh-hem. Thanks for reading!**


End file.
